Lets all live in hermetically sealed bubbles shall we? And while were at it, only eat sterilized food and breathe purified air, because the H&S risk of catching a common cold is much, much greater than actually living. :roll:

Stella was right.

EDIT: Stella beat me to it!

Anyway - you should try working in an air-conditioned office. Its an unnecessary distribution medium of all sorts of rubbish, I'd say that most of my colds come from work not band.

Coughs and colds are part of life. Everyone has them at some stage, blowing tubas or not.

Shall we all just lock ourselves in a room from the rest of my life just in case a walk over the road and catch a disease?

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Oh, so you aren't an expert after all. Shame. So it looks as though they might have a point after all :-(

My 32 years as an Environmental Health Officer has taught me to take BIG notice of Microbiologists. I find they DO know what they are talking about, and together with Doctors nurses and my own profession, they have advanced knowlwedge on spread of communicable diseases over the years which has saved MILLIONS of lives. I mean, what would they know! I can only presume you subscribe to the "Miasma" therory of disease.

If you are such a risk taker, then perhaps you should try asking someone with a cold to sneeze in your face, that's the equivalent to this.

Before Xmas I had swine flu, it knocked me out for many weeks, (local people died so I am not complaining) - would you have wanted that too, I could have obliged if I had only known, that's spread pretty much the same way as well as more personal contact.

To be sure, it's never seemed to me that diseases spread noticeably more quickly around bands than around other gatherings of people. Maybe a smaller bandroom would make things worse?

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I think you might well be right. I had assumed it was the sheer number of teachers and school kids, after all schools are a hot-bed of colds and flu. Certainly the couple of years I had away from playing meant I didn't' have any - since getting back to playing, I have had colds several times and flu, to the extent that it has resurrected my sinusitis, and I missed some playing time just recently it has been so bad.

theMouthPieceRelated Searches

Lets all live in hermetically sealed bubbles shall we? And while were at it, only eat sterilized food and breathe purified air, because the H&S risk of catching a common cold is much, much greater than actually living. :roll:

I think it's the connection between vuvuzela and band instruments that makes this a bit tenuous - it says in the article: "A short burst on the instrument creates a spittle shower similar to a sneeze", but band instruments don't create that - any spittle showered into the mouthpiece comes to rest against the first bend in the tubing, and I find it hard to believe that any could make it out of the bell of even a soprano cornet, let alone a tuba.

If playing in a band does render one more likely to pick up stray germs, I suspect it's more to do with all the deep breathing we do in close proximity to others.

I think it's the connection between vuvuzela and band instruments that makes this this a bit tenuous - it says in the article: "A short burst on the instrument creates a spittle shower similar to a sneeze", but band instruments don't create that - any spittle showered into the mouthpiece comes to rest against the first bend in the tubing, and I find it hard to believe that any could make it out of the bell of even a soprano cornet, let alone a tuba.

If playing in a band does render one more likely to pick up stray germs, I suspect it's more to do with all the deep breathing we do in close proximity to others.

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To be honest, it's not something I had considered before, and unfortunate I am no longer in a position to do any practical tests, but once in aerosol form, infectious droplets can remain airborne for quite some time before falling to the floor - so perhaps they can, perhaps not.

I think you have a good point with the deep breathing thing too, after all, I spend a few hours a week within inches of people in the bandroom, hyperventilating, the rest of the time a handshake is as close as I ever get!

I'd have thought that the colder metal of the instrument (i.e. colder than breath) would cause the vapour to condense out of the airstream pretty immediately - the first tubing bend would be the obvious candidate place.

to be honest, I think our audiences are more at risk from old age than the common cold.

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Probably - and they are just the people who DIE from minor infections and major infections alike.

Certainly I have personally seen deaths in old people's homes from minor foodborne illness, that young people throw off easily; oddly enough in a couple of cases the very same old people's residential care homes that I have later played Xmas carols

Sniffles for you can mean pneumonia and a wooden box for the frail elderly

I'd have thought that the colder metal of the instrument (i.e. colder than breath) would cause the vapour to condense out of the airstream pretty immediately - the first tubing bend would be the obvious candidate place.

There's an MSc project here for someone to tidy up the details...

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Very good points.
Thankfully there are such people around who can study such situations properly and rationally left to some we would all be avoiding miasmas, having smallpox "parties" and dressing like this

time for some commonsense I think. there is widespread knowldege about basic hygeine, things like washing your hands after going to the toilet, using hankies when you cough and sneeze and not sharing your toothbrush. we can extend that to basic hygeine when playing brass instruments,
Clean your teeth before you play,
Clean your mouthpiece after you play (not sterilse it though)
If you have a cold or mouth infection or cold sore skip playing until you recover.
Do not share mouthpieces (it is to my mind hte equivalent of sharing a toothbrush) and
if you change instruments clean it inside and out before you hand it to someone else
now, is that so difficult?